Following a heartbreaking loss to the Stockton Heat on Saturday, the Ontario Reign had hoped to rebound in Bakersfield against the Condors. However, this was not the case as they got full-blown dominated in a 5-1 loss.
This loss marked the Reign’s third in five games through February thus far. It was their first loss by 4+ goals since falling to the Tucson Roadrunners, 8-4 on Nov. 12.
The Condors opened the scoring with a goal from Luke Esposito, and three minutes later, the Reign tied it up, thanks to a nice give-and-go play between Martin Frk and Jaret Anderson-Dolan.
To start the second period, Cooper Marody shot an absolute laser into the net for his 14th goal of the season, and after that, it became all Bakersfield.
Seth Griffith buried two goals within the span of three minutes, and Raphael Lavoie potted one more in the dying minutes of the second period to put the Condors up, 5-1.
There were no goals in the third period, as both teams kind of realized that the game was over, and there was no real need to keep playing, so the intensity died down.
The Reign decided to adopt the Kings’ power play method, as they went for a total of 0-for-6 on special teams last night.
The Condors outshot the Reign, 29-26.
Nightmare game for Ingham
Jacob Ingham had about the worst game that you could imagine for the Reign last night, as he allowed five goals on 17 shots, saving just 12 for a save percentage of .705.
To say that it was all his fault would be a lie, as the entire team just looked off and was not ready to play, not doing him any favors on the backend. However, it’s hard to stay confident when your goalie only stops 12 shots.
Ingham was yanked after the second period and replaced by Matthew Villalta, who stopped all 12 shots he faced in the third period to finish off the game.
Austin Wagner avoids bad injury
All Reign fans held their breath when they saw Austin Wagner crash into the Condors’ goal post at full speed in the second period.
Wagner was on a partial breakaway before being tripped up by the defender and seemingly hitting his knee off of the post. He took a couple of minutes to get up and clutched his left knee. He couldn’t put any weight on his leg while skating off the ice and needed to be helped by two Reign skaters.
Despite the injury looking bad, it turned out not to be as bad as initially perceived, as he returned in the third period halfway through.
Martin Frk buries his 22nd goal of the season
As I mentioned earlier, the Ontario Reign’s lone goal of the game came off of a nice two-on-one look between Frk and Anderson-Dolan, which gave Frk his 22nd goal of the season and 44th point through 35 games.
Despite the goal, Frk told the media in the post-game that he wasn’t satisfied, “I had a lot of opportunities to score, and I didn’t, so it’s kind of frustrating for me, and also for the team to try and help them win.”
“As a team, we were not doing the right things. No one likes losing, it’s tough, and this one definitely hurt,” Frk added. “We definitely have to get better.
“I think we need to realize what we are good at, what is our style of the game. We need to be playing every night […], it’s a long season, everyone got a bad stretch, maybe you’re getting it right now, but we need to bounce back.”
The Ontario Reign are off until Saturday for a showdown against the San Diego Gulls.
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